I don’t remember a lot of specifics from my childhood. This picture of me, as a six year old with a toothless grin, jogs my memory though. I love how my pigtails resemble the tassels hanging from the handles of my orange banana-seat bike, which my grandparents gifted me.

I remember the old rope swing that hung from the tree across the street at our neighbor’s house. We used to swing on it across a creek that was full of leeches! And, that skinny tree on the right? We grew up together. Literally. We were together for 26 years and now both the tree and myself are weathered, thick around the middle, with branches that reach for the sky and sway in the breeze.

My heart is forever imprinted in the bark there, and in that place where I grew up and became a woman. The tree belongs to someone else’s family now. I visit when I’m home in Michigan and gaze at it from the road. I hope that it brings as much joy to them as it still does for me. ~shared by @desperately_seeking_gina